by Robin Palmer
I nodded.
“And when you get back from L.A., you and I will have an extra-special IBS session, okay?”
“No doctor or dentist appointments,” I warned. “Or bra shopping.”
She laughed. “No doctor or dentist appointments or bra shopping. I’m thinking maybe even a weekend away—just the two of us.”
I nodded as I burrowed deeper into her arms. I may have been only twelve—closer to thirteen, in fact—but at that moment, I definitely wasn’t too old to have my mom hug me. “Mom? Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Can I get a kitten now?”
She laughed. “Nice try. No.”
I sighed. Obviously, she didn’t feel that bad for me.
chapter 6
Dear Dr. Maude,
You’re not going to believe this, but I am sending you this e-mail FROM THE AIRPLANE!!! From somewhere over Illinois, actually, because the captain just said, “Folks, we’re just passing over Chicago, Illinois.” I’m sure you know this already, because you’re very famous and fly all the time, but if you have a credit card (I don’t, but Laurel does), you can pay $12.95 and be on the Internet for the entire flight!
I’m sure because of the famous thing you get to sit in first class, too, but in case you don’t, it’s really REALLY cool. First of all, the seats are a lot bigger and cushier than the ones in the regular part of the plane, so you don’t feel like your butt is getting all bruised. And as soon as you sit down, they offer you something to drink. For free, BTW! And then when it’s time for lunch, the food comes on real plates rather than in those plastic TV dinner–looking things. Also for free!
Oh, and every seat has its own movie screen so you can watch whatever you want. Laurel’s watching Austin Mackenzie’s latest movie, Surfing Safari, the one where he surfs with a chimp—and is getting all googly-eyed because, unlike me, she KNOWS she has a crush on him. If the actual L.A. part of the trip is half as good as the plane ride, I’ll be happy—especially if I get to be on your show. (I don’t mean to be a pain or anything, but have you thought any more about that?) When we get to L.A., we’re staying at a fancy hotel in Santa Monica called Shutters on the Beach, and it’s literally ON THE BEACH. According to Laurel, you can hear the waves from your room and everything!
Plus, when we get to the airport, a LIMOUSINE is picking us up, and apparently they have water and little candies in the back that you can have. Also for free! It’s kind of weird that people pay all this money to go first class only to then get a bunch of free stuff with it, but I’m not complaining. In fact, I’m not sure if I’ll get to do this again, so I’m making sure to take as many souvenirs as I can (I took three of the little hand lotion bottles from the airplane bathroom already).
I do have to say, this is the first time I’ve seen Laurel in full Laurel-Moses-teen-superstar mode—you know, not trying to hide the Movie-Star thing—and it’s kind of weird. It’s not like she’s being mean to me or anything like that, but for once she’s definitely not trying to hide the fact that she’s famous like she does in New York. It makes me a little nervous, because she’s acting all weird. But I’m sure everything will be fine. Right?
Okay, I have to go because the flight attendant just brought me the soda I asked for and I don’t want to spill it on my laptop. You know, because of my coordination issues.
yours truly,
LUCY B. PARKER
When you’re a person with coordination issues, being blinded by flashes from the paparazzi as you try to make your way through an airport doesn’t help. If anything, it makes you stumble around as if you’re playing Helen Keller in a school play.
“How’d they even know you were here?” I asked Laurel, rubbing my eyes to try to unblind myself as we climbed into the limo that was going to take us to Shutters.
“Marci tipped them off,” Laurel replied. Marci was Laurel’s publicist. I had never met her because she lived in L.A., but I would when she came to the set on Monday. According to Laurel, most publicists were Mean Girl types, sort of like Cristina Pollock. Which is why they were good at spreading gossip, like, say, when a star landed at an airport. Laurel didn’t like Marci all that much (“Because, like, she talks in questions?” she said. “Like this?”), but apparently having a publicist was just as important as having an agent or a personal assistant or a psychic—all of which Laurel had. Her assistant was named Jaycee, and although I hadn’t met her yet, I had talked to her on the phone. And her psychic was named Gorgeous George. I was dying to meet him.
Back in New York, Marci was usually trying to keep the paparazzi away from Laurel—not lead them to her. “Why would she do that?” I asked, glancing at the limo driver to make sure he wasn’t looking before I shoved more mints in my bag.
“Because this is such an important role for me—you know, because of the kissing and stuff,” she explained. “She wants to use this movie to help me change my image so that people start seeing me in a more grown-up way. And the pictures of me will be on gossip websites and in magazines and stuff.”
As we pulled up to the hotel, and I saw the swarm of paparazzi standing in front of the entrance, I started to get nervous. I knew that Laurel was getting tired of being considered America’s Sweetheart because of her show, but did she have to pick this trip to change everything? How were we going to bond with photographers and people around all the time? And what if she ended up totally forgetting about me and I ended up spending all my time examining the ends of my hair? Which was something I did when I had nothing to do but wanted to make it look like I had something to do.
As the limo driver opened my door, I took a deep breath. At least my hair had grown out enough that if I ended up in any of those pictures I wouldn’t look like a giant egghead.
Once we got in the lobby of the hotel, Mr. Patel, the concierge of the hotel (a fancy way of saying the guy who’s in charge and gets to boss everyone else around in a very polite voice), told us the bad news: there had been a screwup, and there wasn’t a regular suite available. But the good news was that we were going to be in the Presidential Suite!
“Has the president actually stayed in it?” I asked Mr. Patel, while Laurel signed autographs and posed for pictures for people and said things like, “No, it’s a pleasure to meet you!” in the higher-than-normal voice she used when she was being Laurel-Moses-teen-superstar.
“I’m not at liberty to say, Miss Parker,” he replied in a polite English accent, as he led us into the elevator and up to the top floor. Laurel had gotten back on the phone, which, frankly, I thought was pretty rude, but I didn’t say anything. It didn’t seem very polite to get into a fight with someone in front of a very polite person like Mr. Patel. When he showed us the room, I gasped. It was a bajillion times nicer than the rooms at Disney World’s Port Orleans French Quarter, which, up until then, was the nicest hotel I had ever stayed in. This suite had two bedrooms, two bathrooms with huge Jacuzzi bathtubs, a kitchen, a dining room table that sat six people, a huge flat-screen TV, a fireplace, and a view of the Pacific Ocean right outside the window. Even though I was really excited to see L.A., I would’ve been happy to spend the entire week inside watching DVDs.
I walked over to the ginormous Welcome-to-Shutters, we-hope-you-enjoy-your-stay welcome basket. “Hey, Laurel—check this out!” I said.
“Lucy, I’m on the phone,” she whispered.
Chocolate-covered almonds?! Peanut-butter pretzels?! Saltwater taffy?! The basket was packed with the best foods! The only thing missing were red velvet cupcakes. I turned to Mr. Patel. “Is this free, or does it cost money like the stuff in the minibar?” Mom had warned me that under no circumstances was I allowed to eat the stuff from the minibar, because they charged you like ten bucks for a candy bar.
“That’s complimentary, Miss Parker,” he replied politely, as he walked around and adjusted vases that were already perfect and straightened piles of magazines that were already straight. Complimentary meant FREE.
; I grabbed some peanut-butter pretzels, flopped down on the couch, and turned on the big-screen TV. “Laurel, look—Pretty in Pink is on!” I said. It was a really old movie, but we both loved it. In fact, it was one of the first things we had bonded over after I moved to New York.
“Lucy, I told you—I’m on the phone. Now please be quiet,” she said in a very un-Laurel-like, unpolite way, shooting me a mean look.
I couldn’t believe she was treating me like some sort of annoying little sister. Way to embarrass me in front of Mr. Patel. Luckily, when I glanced over at him, he was busy fluffing pillows on the other couch across the room, so he probably hadn’t heard or seen her look, but still, I was totally embarrassed.
I stood up and turned off the TV. “Fine. I’ll just go into the other room then,” I grumbled.
I waited for her to say something like, “No, Lucy, don’t go. Please stay. I’m sorry I snapped at you like that,” but she didn’t. Instead, she just kept yakking away on her stupid phone.
Once Laurel finally got off the phone and unpacked and ironed her clothes (I decided in light of the weirdness that was going on not to ask her to iron mine), she seemed to relax a little bit, and things got back to normal between us. After ordering pancakes for dinner from room service (that was one of the best things about room service—breakfast at dinnertime), which we ate on our private deck overlooking the Pacific Ocean, I was ready to conk out. Between the sea air and the super-comfortable bed with the softest sheets I had ever felt in my life, I slept like a log, and I was relieved that when I woke up the next morning, Laurel was back to being plain old Laurel instead of Laurel-Moses-teen-superstar-who-is-on-the-phone-all-the-time.
She didn’t have to start work on the movie set until Monday, so we had two whole days to sightsee, which was awesome—especially since “sightseeing” with Laurel was done in a chauffeured car with a guy who knew where he was going, instead of Dad, who had to pull over every few minutes to look at a map. I could get used to this no-parents thing. We went to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and I got to see the handprints and footprints. Then we drove to the Venice boardwalk and watched all the weirdos like the guy with dreadlocks who roller-skated around in what looked like a bikini bottom while playing an electric guitar, and this woman who painted pictures using ketchup and mustard for five dollars.
On Sunday, we went on a super-fancy private tour of Universal Studios, and when we got back to the hotel, we got these amazing burgers delivered from this place called Father’s Office. I was finishing my burger when Laurel started freaking out and getting really nervous about the fact that in less than twenty-four hours she would be meeting her crush, Austin Mackenzie. And within a week, she’d have to kiss him. In front of an entire film crew. A bunch of times.
“Look at the bright side,” I said, as she paced around the suite. “You have a crush on him, so pretending you want to kiss him shouldn’t be too hard. If you want, I’ll run lines with you so you can practice. It’ll be like . . . studying for a kissing quiz.”
She stopped pacing. “Really? You’d do that?”
Would I do that?! I had been dying to do that! I had just been too shy to ask before this. It’s not like I wanted to be an actress (see “not even able to get a role as a munchkin in the school play” for further details), especially because acting called for things like coordination and memorization and talent, and all I was good at was blurting, tripping, and keeping track of girls’ periods (and maybe crushes, but the crush log was still too new to tell for sure). But still, it was a way to get a little taste of what it was like to be a famous actor.
She thrust her script at me. “Here—you be Austin.”
“I don’t want to be the boy,” I said. It’s like when I used to play Barbies with Rachel and Missy and they’d make me be Ken. I was hoping to be someone... interesting. Like the great-grandmother character. Laurel let me look at the script a while back, and I had thought she was a really funny character. And when Laurel said that Lady Countess Annabel Ashcroft de Winter von Taxi, one of the greatest actresses of all time, was going to play her, I was completely psyched. I was dying to meet her. I had read on Wikipedia that she had started out in the theater in London, but now she played the grandmother or great-aunt with magical powers in almost every movie that had a wizard or a witch or a vampire.
“But we’re doing this so I can practice my scenes with Austin, remember?”
“Oh yeah,” I said. As we went over her lines, every time we got to the part where I said, in what I thought was a very Austin-like voice, “Wow—that potion I cooked up seems to have worked, because I think I’m standing in front of my soul mate,” she just stared at me all googly-eyed, and I’d have to snap my fingers and say, “Um, hi, Earth to Laurel—now you’re supposed to say, ‘Oh Henry—I bet you say that to all the girls!’”
She flopped back on her bed, which, because it was something called a California king, was even bigger than Mom and Alan’s bed back in New York. “I can’t do this,” she moaned.
“Yes, you can. If you want, we can make cue cards, or you can write the lines on your hand.” The writing-on-the-hand thing worked really well for me when I had to give oral reports. Well, as long as I didn’t get nervous to the point where my palms started to sweat. Then, not so much.
“No—all of this with Austin!” she cried. “Who am I kidding, thinking he’s going to like me back? He’s Austin Mackenzie, and I’m just—”
“One of the biggest stars in the world and one of Teen People’s Most Beautiful People just like him?” I finished.
“Yes, but if we really get to know each other, then he’ll see that underneath all that I’m just . . . me.”
“And the problem with that is . . . ?”
“That I’m a total dork!” she cried.
It still amazed me that no matter how many awards she won, or how many e-mails she got from fans, Laurel was just as insecure as every other girl in the world. Well, except for Cristina Pollock, who seemed to be absent the day they were handing that part out. “You’re not a total dork,” I said. “I mean, sure, you can be a little bit dorkish sometimes—like with the organizing and the making sure everything is buttoned when you hang it on a hanger—but I’m sort of a dork, too. That’s why we get along so well.”
Although I felt awful admitting this, I was kind of glad that Laurel was a bit of a dork. Because the whole acting-like-a-movie-star thing had made me feel a little worried—like soon enough, she’d realize she was just as fabulous as everyone thought she was, and then she wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore.
She smiled at me. “I guess you’re right.”
“Plus, you’re now in the same city with the guy who’s your local, long-distance, and celebrity crush. Not many people can say that. I bet it brings you a ton of luck.”
“I hope so.” She smiled at me. A regular-Laurel smile, not a superstar-Laurel one. “I’m really glad you’re here with me, Lucy.”
“Me, too,” I said as I smiled back a Lucy smile, which is the only kind I had.
On Monday morning, Laurel worked out with the personal trainer that the producers of the movie had gotten her, so I walked to this place called Urth Caffé on Main Street for breakfast. Laurel said that hardly anyone walked anywhere in L.A., and as I walked down Pico Boulevard and made a left on Main Street, I discovered that she was right. I didn’t pass a single person other than a homeless guy and a woman in a fur coat (even though it was June) and sunglasses (even though it was cloudy) walking a little yippy dog that also had sunglasses on.
It was still pretty early, but the café was packed with very beautiful, very smiley people. A lot of them were wearing yoga outfits. Sarah would’ve loved it. Well, she would’ve loved it back before she got pregnant. Now she would’ve been more interested in the delicious-looking muffins and cookies behind the glass display.
“Did I hear you right?” asked Brandi, my waitress. “You really want the Bread Pudding Breakfast?”
I nodded and
pointed to the menu. “It says right here that it’s ‘the best breakfast in L.A.’ ” Lots of times menus tried to make things sound better than they were, but how could bread pudding with baked bananas on top not be good?
“Yeah, but no one actually . . . orders it,” she replied. “It’s so . . . bready. You sure you don’t want an egg white omelet like that guy over there?” she asked, motioning to a man at the next table reading a newspaper called Variety, which I knew from Laurel and Alan was the daily paper for people in the movie business. “Or some yogurt and fruit like her?” she asked, pointing to a woman next to him reading the Hollywood Reporter, which was the other movie-business newspaper.
I wrinkled my nose. Even someone like me, who wasn’t so great at math, knew that “no adults around” plus “dessert-sounding breakfast” equaled “must order.” And “egg whites” plus “fruit” equaled “way boring.” “No, thank you,” I said. “I’m going to try the best breakfast in L.A.”
My food arrived, and while I wasn’t sure how it stacked up against other restaurants in L.A., it was pretty delicious—especially when I asked for a side of peanut butter to smear on it. “What a marvelous sight!” came an English accent from behind me. “It’s not often in this town that you see a young girl enjoying her food with such . . . relish. How utterly refreshing!”
Oh my God. I’d recognize that voice anywhere—it had been in almost every single one of my favorite movies! I whipped around and gasped. It was her! Right in front of me was Lady Countess Annabel Ashcroft de Winter von Taxi! She was even wearing her trademark turban and a long flowy robe-looking dress, which Mom had once told me was called a caftan, so she looked just like she did in her pictures. Except maybe a little older. I leaned forward for a better look. Okay, maybe a lot older.